Silver Queens and Salsa

Here's today's meager haul from our little garden. I thought there was something wrong with the okra; it was white. Okra is supposed to be green or burgundy, isn't it? It probably has some disease and isn't edible, I thought. Then I remembered that I’d planted a new (to me) heirloom variety, Silver Queen. Well, duh! Why is it called silver? Silver Queen is NOT green, it’s kind of a pale creamy, almost white kind of green. The seed catalog says it’s supposed to be very tender when picked young, but this may have been on the plant too long. We’ll see.
There were only a few little tomatoes ripe today, and a few squash. This is probably the end of the squash. Squash- vine borers have been doing their dastardly deeds- they’ve already destroyed the zucchini and have begun work on the yellow squash now. With our long season, I may have time to plant more- I’m going to try, anyway. The beans are still doing nicely, as are the peppers, and we got a nice haul of roma and tip-top tomatoes over the week-end.

Most of the tomatoes went into the freezer, but I saved out a few to make salsa- it’s quite good. So good, in fact, that I ate nearly a whole jar all by myself. The jalapeno (seeds and all) give it a wonderful after-burn effect. I may regret my gluttony later...

The Hungry Caterpillar

Caught in the act!

I nearly missed this little critter. He's almost the same shade of green as the bean pods that he was happily boring holes in, thinking, no doubt, that he was well camouflaged and would avoid detection.

I have no idea just what he is, although in trying to identify him, I've learned a great deal more about caterpillars. I looked here and thought he might be a cabbage or soybean looper or a green cloverworm, but he doesn't have the right number of leg segments or otherwise fully fit the description. Then I went here, and became fascinated by the diversity of caterpillars. Some I'm familiar with, like the tomato hornworm that nearly wiped out all my tomatoes one year. But being mesmerized by the images on the first two pages and spending much more time than I'd planned, I gave up, so still don't know what my little bean borer is. If you recognize him, please let me know.